by L. J. Smith
“You mean you have wings?” Alys bent over the serpent, reaching a tentative finger toward one of the bumps. Now that she looked at them more closely, they didn’t look decorative at all. They looked … like wounds… .
“Cadal Forge tore them off,” whispered the serpent.
The stairway to the cellar was just off the kitchen, and it plunged narrow and straight into the darkness below. Moments after Charles and Claudia stepped onto it, the darkness engulfed them. Charles took a flashlight out of his windbreaker pocket and switched it on, but the light seemed pitifully weak, and illuminated only a small area of the steep, uneven stone steps. He put his free hand on the wall to steady himself and quickly snatched it back. The wall was furry—with slime, cobwebs, fungus, who knew what. He didn’t turn the flashlight aside to see.
Behind him, Claudia had a firm grip on his wind-breaker. Charles wanted to say something to reassure her, but the darkness and the silence closed his throat. It felt as if no one had spoken in this place for centuries.
They reached the bottom, cut off completely from the world of light and sound. The room was so large that it had the open-air feeling of a subterranean cavern walled with hewn stone and floored with hard-packed earth. With Claudia still clutching him desperately, Charles made the circuit of the room, keeping close to the bulk of the wall. If, he thought, something were to leap suddenly out of the blackness into the small bright spot the flashlight made …
When they got to the far end with its mirror of stained and battered steel, Charles began to feel a little better. Nothing had jumped out at them. But there was no sign of Morgana. Just to be sure, they would hug the other wall on the way back and look into the counterpart of Morgana’s secret workroom, but he was already certain they would find nothing. This place was empty, deserted as a forgotten tomb. No one had disturbed its stillness for centuries.
It was then, of course, that a voice spoke out of the darkness behind them.
Chapter 10
THE QUESTION GAME
The voice was slow and cold and thick, like frozen mud. It brought to mind all the long, cruel, inexorable processes of the earth, the erosion of mountains, the creeping of glaciers, the lazy drift of colliding continents. “Who … dares … trespass?” it said.
Charles and Claudia jerked around like marionettes on strings. The flashlight wavered hysterically around the room.
“What is it? Oh, what is it?” gasped Claudia.
“Who … dares … trespass?”
The light caught something moving. Charles focused on it, and promptly wished he hadn’t. There was a thing out there in the darkness, a thing which seemed to be carved of moldering rock, and which was swimming through the ground as if the hard-packed earth were water. The thing had massive shoulders, knotted arms that scooped effortlessly through the soil, and a very large mouth. Claudia made a small noise and subsided.
“Who—what are you?” croaked Charles.
“Did you not come seeking the Groundsler?”
“The … Groundsler?” Charles swallowed. The thing was between them and the stairway.
“What manner of Weerul sprite are you?” the creature continued, moving closer yet.
“I’m not a sprite. I’m a human. Are you—”
“Ha!” The single word exploded around them. “Once again I have won the game. Still, you were such poor opponents, my dears, that there is little glory in it.”
“What are you talking about? What game?” Charles broke off with an exclamation. For an instant he’d had the feeling he was sinking—he was sinking. Turning the flashlight on his own feet he saw, to his horror, that the earth and rock were flowing around them like molasses. Before he could cry out, his feet were embedded in it up to the ankles.
“Charles?” Claudia’s voice came to him quietly. “Charles, I’m stuck.”
“So … am I, Claude.” He looked up, fear now mingling with anger. “What do you think you’re doing? Let us go!”
“Go? Foolish child, you’ve lost.”
“Lost what?”
“The Question Game, of course. I am the Groundsler, the One Who Questions. You gave me an answer, and so you lost. Now I will give you my answer, which is to say I will eat you.” It chuckled at its little joke, with a sound like a tar pit bubbling.
“We answered a question—so you eat us?”
“That is the game. And a very good game, too. It’s been a long time since I’ve had company. Though a minor sorcerer did stumble down here the other day, looking for a shovel. He was delicious,” the Groundsler added reminiscently.
“I want Alys,” said Claudia. “Alys! Alys!”
“Not like that, Claude, they won’t hear you. Let’s do it together. One, two, three: Alys! Alys! Janie!”
“Oh, by all means,” said the Groundsler, settling deeper into the rock. “I’m anxious to meet all your little friends.”
Alys and Janie were far above in the castle where no human ears could hear the disturbance below. Alys was at that moment staring at the serpent with a sick feeling in her stomach and a metallic taste in her mouth.
“We’re going to get him,” she said, hardly knowing her own voice. “We’re going to get Cadal Forge. I promise.”
“Lady, you must not distress yourself so… . I am of no great value… .” The serpent’s voice was fading.
“We were going to do it anyway.” She sounded abrupt and ungracious, but Alys knew Janie meant well. “Is he here in the castle now?”
“I think … not… . I have not seen him for days. . . .”
“What can we do to help you?” said Alys gently.
“There is … a grotto in the conservatory … where I might lie until I heal. My wings will not grow back … but I will live without them.” The serpent dropped its head to the floor, then lifted it weakly. “Pardon, good ladies, my saviors, but is either of you the Lady Alys? Or the Lady Janie?”
“We’re both,” said Alys, confused. “I mean, I’m Alys. How did you know?”
“Two voices below call your names.”
“Charles and Claudia—oh, no!” Alys sprang up.
“Wait, good my ladies, wait—”
But Alys was already out the door, with Janie at her heels. The serpent lay still a moment gathering its vanished strength. Then, painfully, as slowly as a flower turning toward the sun, it began to drag itself after them.
Alys nearly broke her neck on the first step in her mad rush to get down to the cellar.
“Charles? Claudia? Where are you?”
“Alys!” Charles’s voice came from far below her, echoing. “Alys, don’t say anything! Don’t talk!”
“What? What do you mean? Are you all right?”
“Yes! I mean, no! Listen, Alys, just shut up! Don’t either of you say anything until I finish explaining! All right? All right.” Charles’s voice became businesslike. “There’s a—a thing down here called a Groundsler. It’s got Claudia and me. But it can’t get you unless you answer a question. Get it? It’s going to ask you questions, and if you answer it, it wins. If it answers you, you win. You can say anything you want, but it has to be a question. Understand?”
Alys had reached the bottom of the steps and now she stood still, dumbfounded. Had to be a question?
Behind her Janie’s voice was clear and icily calm.
“What happens when it loses?”
“It has to do whatever you tell it. If you win it’ll let us go. I—I can’t see any other way to get out.”
“Where is it now?”
“Where else would I be, my dear?” The head surfaced a few feet in front of them, breaking through the solid earth. Pale eyes gleamed like minerals in the single shaft of light. Alys started to scream, choked, and stumbled back, wondering dizzily if a scream was a question or not.
Janie stepped to her side, and spoke carefully. On her face was the dispassionate, preoccupied look she wore when playing a difficult game of chess. “Alys, do you understand the rules?”
“I … er … I … can sort of … uh, I do—don’t I?” Alys threw her hands up helplessly and pressed her lips together. She was out of her depth.
Janie nodded, and turned to the creature. “Are you the Groundsler?” she asked.
“My dear, upon whose domain do you intrude?” The slow, terrible voice sounded amused.
“What are you doing with Charles and Claudia?”
There was a muddy chuckle. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“I think it’s going to—eat us,” called Charles. “That is, if you don’t win. But you will,” he added hastily.
Janie thought a moment, then addressed the creature. “Do you know Morgana, the sorceress who built this castle?”
The Groundsler moved lazily. “Who does not know the Mirror Mistress?”
“Are you in league with Cadal Forge?”
“Do you seek to insult me?”
“Do you know where Morgana is now?”
“What makes you ask?”
Janie hesitated, unable to think of a way to respond to this without making a statement. The Groundsler, which had so far been content to let her take the lead, suddenly switched to the offensive.
“Did you not know the risk you took, coming to this place?”
“Er—which place: the cellar or the castle?”
“Or the world?” Alys put in suddenly. She then retreated in confusion. The Groundsler moved forward, and now the questions came quickly.
“What part of the human world do you come from, my dear?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“And how did you get here?”
“What do you think the mirrors are for?”
“And what is your business with Cadal Forge?”
“That’s none of your business—uh, is it?”
It had her on the run now.
“What is your name, little one?”
“Didn’t you hear the others shouting it?”
“I wonder, shall I be eating Janie or Alys first?”
“Don’t you … ah, think it may be unwise, eating any friends of Morgana’s?”
“Will the sorceress, then, come to your aid?”
“What do you think?”
“What do you think?”
Janie was stung. “Hey—is repeating fair?”
“Yes,” said the Groundsler.
There was a moment of utter silence. Then Alys gave a wild triumphant yell and grabbed Janie around the neck.
“We won! We won! I mean—we won, didn’t we?” Just in case, she tried to turn it into a question.
The Groundsler was standing—or wading, or whatever—as still as the rock it appeared to be made of.
“Impossible,” it said at last. It sounded shaken.
“Let us go!” bellowed Claudia. “You promised!”
“Promised what?” said the Groundsler sullenly.
“Oh, no you don’t,” said Janie. “I won, and I’m telling you to let them go.”
The Groundsler made a noise like a volcano and a noise like a glacier and a noise like a gravel pit collapsing. Around Charles’s and Claudia’s ankles the rock liquefied and melted away. They were free.
No one ever moved faster than they did getting back up the stairs. Safe in the kitchen at last, they were all talking at once as they moved toward the hallway mirror.
“What’s that?” Charles pulled up short, staring at what looked like a length of blue cord on the hallway floor.
“Oh, the serpent! Don’t stomp it, Charles!”
Charles, who had had no idea of stomping it, withdrew indignantly. Alys dropped to her knees.
“You shouldn’t have tried to move,” she said.
“Gentle mistress … I came to …” The voice faded.
“It said ‘to warn us,’” said Janie.
Alys was touched. “Oh … oh, thank you. But what can we do for you, now?”
Out of the faint hiss that followed only two words were distinguishable: conservatory and grotto. Weakly, the serpent guided them back into the great hall and through a little doorway in the wall opposite the hearth.
The conservatory was a tangle of weeds and briars, with narrow paths half-buried under twining vegetation. Behind this, like a small natural cave, was the grotto.
Alys and the others stopped in their tracks.
One wall was ruined, and moonlight and chill outdoor air flooded in. But the other walls! They were encrusted with minerals of every hue. Rose quartz crystals like pink diamonds, spiky red cinnabar, forest green malachite, translucent gypsum, and, yes, red wulfenite, hornblende, and peacock coal were clustered side by side with topaz, tourmaline, amethyst, garnet, and opal.
But if the walls were a rainbow, the floor was like a dream. Ankle-deep, and in some places knee-deep, it was piled with treasure. There were pitchers and drinking bowls and goblets, all gleaming with the soft heavy yellow light of solid gold. There were ropes of pearls and heaps of necklaces, armlets, brooches, and diadems. There were gem-encrusted chalices, and golden candlesticks and scepters.
“People bring them to me,” explained the serpent simply, as they stood agape. “They have, ever since I hatched here. It is … traditional, when the Council sends a serpent’s egg … to bring gifts… .”
Gently, Alys set the little creature among the piles. “The Weerul Council sent you?”
“Every great house has its serpent guardian. But I have failed … failed both the Council and my lady… .”
A tiny hope which had sprung up in Alys’s mind died. “You don’t know where Cadal Forge imprisoned Morgana.”
“He seized me first… . I knew nothing, lying before that terrible fire.” The serpent sagged in defeat and exhaustion. “I cannot help you with that. But”—it looked up at her pleadingly—“there is something I can give you. Choose what you will from my treasures. All I have is yours for the asking… .”
Alys shook her head, but the others lost no time in offering suggestions. Charles proffered a crown set with walnut-sized raw rubies, Janie tenderly dusted off an exquisitely enameled vase, and Claudia dived into a pile headfirst and emerged with what looked like a pair of silver-plated thumbscrews.
But Alys, when she at last realized the serpent was serious, put her hand immediately on the only weapon to be seen in the hoard, a dagger in a stained and battered leather sheath. It nestled in her hand.
“Not that,” said Charles. “It’s hideous.”
Alys drew the blade.
It shimmered like liquid light in her hand, putting all the other treasures to shame. The sides were very slightly scalloped, with thin diagonal lines running between the scallops, shining bright and pale on the pearlescent background.
“It is a gannelin dagger,” said the serpent quietly. “Made in the Golden Age. There are only three others like it in Findahl.” Utterly depleted by this speech, it sagged down among the piles. “Good-bye, my lady Alys,” it whispered faintly, burrowing into a pile of loose gems. A moment later it had disappeared and there was only a distant hiss of “Thrown or wielded, it will not easily miss its mark… .”
Alys sheathed the dagger again, concealing its brightness, and thrust it into her belt. She was suddenly very tired.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter 11
SHADOWS ON THE WALL
I join the shadows on the wall / To watch with weary silver eyes / Poets who soliloquize …”
“Janie, don’t be morbid,” said Alys.
“… About the fate that awaits us all,” Janie finished in a whisper. She was regarding herself in the study mirror, which was so dark and tarnished that it reflected only a dim and cloudy outline of a girl back at her. Having finished the poem, she bit into the sandwich Alys had packed for her. It was nearly nine o’clock on Friday night, and they were waiting for moonrise. They waited in the study because from this window they had a clear view of the driveway—and of any local law enforcement officers who might be coming up it.
“What I�
�m worried about,” said Alys, “is locked doors. For every locked door we find in the Wildworld, that means one more trip through a mirror. And we’re running out of time.”
This started up the old argument about whether or not they should separate in the Wildworld in an attempt to cover the castle four times as fast. Alys had just stated categorically that from now on they all traveled together, with her going first, when Janie did it.
She had been staring into the dark mirror with disfavor since they all sat down, and now she picked up a crumpled napkin and began to rub at the tarnish. This polishing had no discernible effect on the dirt, but as her hand slipped and her finger touched the surface of the mirror there was a blue-green shimmer, a vermilion silhouette, and then there were only three people in the room.
“The moon must have risen!” cried Charles, jumping to his feet. “And she was wearing the amulet!”
Alys spoke through clenched teeth. “She’d better come back,” she said, and then, several minutes later, “She’d better have a good reason for not coming back.”
“We’ll have to go after her,” said Charles. They had planned on going through the kitchen mirror and exploring the west wing.
A tense second or two later Alys agreed, and very gingerly she touched the grimy mirror.
She emerged in a room lit by a single great candle on a tall standing candlestick. The light flickered strangely, but it was sufficient to show her that she was entirely alone. Moreover, as she began to move toward the closed door to search for Janie, she found that she liked being alone, that she had no particular desire to find her sister or anyone else. She felt strangely light and free. She wanted … oh, she wanted to slip into some dark and lonely place and stay there forever, watching.
“Alyssss …” The voice was eerie, and seemed to come from a long distance, like the music in Morgana’s great hall. “Alys, come heeeeere… .”
Alarm cut through the pleasantly forlorn feeling. She turned around and around, but the room was empty of all but flickering candlelight and dancing shadows. Her hand went to the gannelin dagger, which hung at her belt, but the feel of it was dull. She began to think about dark places again.